| The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Alexander Mccall Smith
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  407 reviews
Sales Rank: 7943
Media: Paperback
Edition: Today Show Book Club
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 235
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.6
ISBN: 1400034779
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781400034772
ASIN: 1400034779
Publication Date: February 6, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Life in Botswana April 27, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
What a delightful look at life in Botswana. after finding the seventh in the series at the airport, i just had to know how it all started.
A Simple Novel? April 11, 2008
Do not be deceived by the apparent simplicity of this novel upon first turning its pages. Although it initially appears to be such, the underlying insights into people and their reasons for doing what they do, is quite profound. Mma Ramotswe owns the only ladies' detective agency in Botswana, and through this book the reader follows her as she embarks upon solving one case after another. This makes the reading quite neat; yes, there are threads and cases that are resolved through the course of the book, but mostly a case is solved in every few chapters. Hence in some ways it reads like a collection of shorts about the same character, a bit like a serialised novel, I guess.
The humour in the novel is infectious, the chapter where Mma Ramotswe solves a case for the powerful Mr Patel, had me grinning widely.
Moreover, the book is very balanced in its outlook on people, and I appreciate its honesty there, it recognises how divergent human nature can be, presents the good with pride and the bad as something that can be overcome in many cases by good people everywhere.
McCall-Smith's love for Botswana and all things Botswanan is tastefully evident throughout, to the extent that it would not surprise me if many a person upon reading a book in the series were to have a desire instilled to travel to this place themselves for a holiday!
I really liked Mmma Ramotswe and her outlook on life. She seems such a positive, straight (in the sense of no alterior motive, what you see is what you get) person (in spite of having faced some life-changing challenges, which the reader is reminded of regularly). Her philosophy: "I love all the people God made... It is my duty to help them solve the mysteries in their lives".
Future reading:I would not hesitate to move on to the other books in the series, or to recommend it to other readers.
The BBC has produced this as a film, which I intend to watch next, if I can get my hands on it!
 The No1 ladies detectiv e agency March 27, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
One of the most boring books i've ever read, if not the most b oring.
My own fault, I fell for an article written about the author who spoke
in this area recently.
 Great Window into the World of Africa March 12, 2008
How charming are these books! I have a confession to make - I've never really cared about traveling all that much, and especially not to somewhere as remote and foreign as Africa. But that has very much changed with Mma Romotswe and Alexander McCall Smith's accounting of her. I now harbor a secret dream of visiting Botswana and the Kalahari.
This first in a series is delightful; Mr. Smith is a true craftsman. He manages to bring us the world at a much slower pace, one that can be very difficult to understand in this country. But he does it while maintaining the integrity of his characters. While they may have a simple way of viewing the world, the characters in this book (and the others that I've read) are not one-dimensional simpletons. Smith manages to weave the problems of today into a culture that isn't necessarily ruled by time so strictly as in the western world.
And while there are many "mysteries" in this novel, the detective agency is more about human nature and the problems we create for ourselves. Mma Romotswe just manages to ponder and resolve some of these issues, while dealing with the problems that arise from daily living. What a fun book.
Great presence February 25, 2008
What a surprise: a New York Times bestseller that's actually quite good. I'm normally a little leery of white male authors writing books with main characters who are not also white men (Memoirs of a Geisha is a good example --- it's so clearly a white guy imagining, badly, what a young Japanese woman might think), but this is a happy surprise. Smith, who was born in Zimbabwe and has lived in Botswana, has not only an eye for finding the telling background detail but also an ear for natural dialogue. Granted that I am not an African woman, Precious Ramotswe sounds to me like herself and not like a bad author's ventriloquist trick. The language of the book is charming, direct without being simple, well considered. A lot happens in this book, but it doesn't feel rushed. Instead, by the end I found myself really liking Mme Ramotswe, thoroughly charmed by her adventures both greater and lesser, and looking for more.
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